BARATI: Symphony No. 1 / Chant of Darkness / Chant of Light

Although the first, fourth and fifth movements were performed in cut form in March 1958, Rochberg' Symphony No. 1, the first large-scale work of his career, is here heard complete for the first time.

Championed by distinguished conductors such as Marin Alsop and Mariss Janson's, since his mid-20s, Michael Hersch's music has been performed by leading orchestras and concert artists.

The young American composer Carson P. Cooman is one of the most active of his generation, having written over six hundred works in many forms. This disc presents a broad overview of his music, from orchestral to chamber and solo works.

The generation of composers that proved so influential in mid-20th c. America included Roger Sessions, Howard Hanson, Roy Harris and Quincy Porter. Porter's much-admired orchestral music is marked by originality in it's absorption of neo-classicism, but his series of nine string quartets also represents an important contribution to the genre. Quartets Nos. 5 to 8 are the works of a composer who had been a professional string player in the 1920s and are marked by rhythmic sophistication and melodic tension. Inspired by the unique temperament of composer Charles Ives, the Ives Quartet is acclaimed for reveling in the unfamiliar and championing an eclectic repertoire, mixing established masterworks with neglected compositions of early-20th c. America, and commissioned new pieces. 'A very enjoyable disc which whets one's appetite for the remaining five quartets.' - Penguin Guide on Volume 1 (8.559305).

Quartet No. 7 was written in 2000 and first performed within weeks after the World Trade Center attacks. It is subtitled Angels, and includes the organ along with the quartet, the only work I know of for that combination. The Quartet No. 2 (1972), the briefest, least ambitious work here, opens as a canon, each instrument eventually entering with the same material. The theme, though, is so remarkably heterogeneous in it's glissandi, trills, tonal and atonal phrases that the canonic effect is not immediately apparent. The Quartet No. 8 (2001-2002) was written as a memorial to the victims of 11th September, and moves through three movements from complete instability to a kind of hypnotic serenity. The opening movement, On wings of sound, is entirely in glissandi, with no fixed reference point anywhere; it is a palindrome canon, a fact that can hardly influence one's perception of it's eerie writhing. A field of uninterrupted glissandos also marks the opening of the Quartet No.4, from 1976-77. Here, though, an accelerative process is in motion, the lines moving faster and faster up to an unexpectedly serene close. The Quartet No.3 from 1975 is similar to the Fourth in it's use of ostinato, but comes closer than any of Coates' other quartets to the idea of theatrically contrasting the personalities of the different instruments, as in Charles Ives's Second Quartet or those of Elliott Carter. The final movement is a Prayer couched in stately chords of parallel fifths - you might notice it's repeated eight-note tune coming back in retrograde. The entire quartet takes a sense of unease from the viola and cello being tuned a quarter-tone off from the violins.

The string quartet has always seemed to me to be the pinnacle of musical expression,' remarks David L. Post, an American composer who makes 'this modest ensemble sing in seemingly impossible ways'.

Named after the celebrated American impressionist painter Mary Cassatt, the Cassatt String Quartet is ideally placed to interpret the music of Dan Welcher.

Coates, G.: String Quartets Nos. 1, 5 and 6

John Corigliano is one of the finest and most widely recognized American composers. He has won several Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize, and an Academy Award for his score for the film the Red Violin. Corigliano' nostalgic Snapshot.

Ursula Mamlok lived for many years in New York before returning to Berlin, the city of her birth, in her eighties. + Featuring a conspectus of her much admired chamber music, this recording is of the concert given in the city’s prestigious Philharmonie in celebration of her ninetieth birthday. + Mamlok herself has said: ‘My main concern is that the music should convey the various emotions in it with clarity and conviction. + It interests me to accomplish this with a minimum of material, transforming it in such multiple ways so as to give the impression of ever-new ideas that are like the flowers of a plant, all related yet each one different.’

Eric Moe is an alchemist of expressive extremes, from what he calls 'beautiful quiet music' to 'the rough, raucous stuff'. His exquisitely controlled music distils rare eloquence, grace, force and beauty from the incongruous elements of pop, rock, jazz.

Bruce Wolosoff' music is beautiful, very musical, independent-minded stylistically,' declares no less a luminary than William Bolcom.

This recording of choral works showcase a group of composers who are or were once faculty members of the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, CUNY. The widely differing languages and poetic aesthetics set by these composers represent the concept of “Songs of Peace and Praise,” from symbolic, descriptive pieces such as Bright Sheng’s “Two Folk Songs from Qinghai” to tender and moving interpretations of traditional texts such as Allen Brings’ “In paradisum.” The voices of The New York Virtuoso Singers and Queens College combine to express the universal nature of shared experience.

Ongs are simply the most sensuous kind of fun one can have with the combination of words and music,' remarks Scott Wheeler, composer of the highly praised the Construction of Boston.